Thursday, January 30, 2014

Archdiocese sues former insurance company

The Archdiocese of Milwaukee has filed suit against its former
insurance company in an attempt to recover $2.6 million in legal fees
related to allegations of clerical sexual abuse.

“OneBeacon has an obligation to pay for these costs under the insurance
policies and … the archdiocese is committed to pursuing the monies it
has coming to help pay the cost of the bankruptcy proceeding,” an
archdiocesan spokesman said.

The archdiocese, which filed for bankruptcy in 2011, is “the first
diocese to enter bankruptcy without the presumption of insurance
coverage,” the Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinel reported.

“Two state courts had ruled earlier that OneBeacon was not responsible
for actions alleged in numerous lawsuits against the archdiocese —
allowing known sexual abusers to have access to children — because those
actions, if proved true, were intentional, rather than accidental.”